Published 12/07/2022
Born in Edinburgh in 1942, Leon Morrocco is the first son of Scottish-Italian artist Alberto Morrocco RSA. Having trained at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee; the Slade School of Art, London; and Edinburgh College of Art, he went on to teach painting in Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow before moving to Australia where he was Head of Fine Art at Chisholm Institute, Melbourne.
Since returning to the UK in 1992, Morrocco has focused solely on his practice and has exhibited
extensively. Morrocco was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1971 and an
Academician in 2005.
Your father Alberto Morrocco was also an artist. Did he influence your work?
LM: I think it inevitable that being brought up in an artistic household in the midst of the creative process that this would be absorbed unconsciously by a young person. My father was totally committed to painting and my mother was also a painter. As a young boy and up to the age of 16 the family spent every summer in Italy and my father painted every day out in the hills near Tivoli, not far from Rome.
At around the age of 14 I began to accompany him on these trips and began to draw and paint, basically standing or sitting next to him.
So yes, I readily took in what he was doing although few words were spoken! No instruction was given as such and this continued even when I decided later to go to Art School…..encouragement, but no teaching! Influence by osmosis?
What is your favourite time to be in your studio?
LM: Although all my painting is studio based I have always been a somewhat uncomfortable “studio” artist and find the long solitary hours spent there sometimes difficult to handle. I am happier, more at ease and in some ways more fulfilled working outside on my preparatory drawings! Both activities are of course necessary and because of this I would stretch the question and say that my favourite time in the studio is when I’m outside it!
How did you develop the style of your paintings?
LM: I have never consciously tried to develop “style” in my work. I am the kind of painter that is almost totally reliant on visual stimulus…..the excitement of a visual reaction to something as a starting point. The translation of this experience, in whatever way, is of paramount importance therefor style is of little importance. Of course, years of painting will result I suppose in an individual style…as in handwriting.
What has drawn you to the landscapes that you depict in your work?
LM: In 2019 I acquired a space to live and work in the south of France…..located some 20k from Nice in the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes. Although aware of the mountains behind me, I began by exploring the coastline between Cannes and the Italian frontier, searching for painting ideas. I soon found this to be pretty unproductive given the density of development along the coast and decided (without much enthusiasm) to try my luck inland. Almost immediately, as I moved up into higher ground I was bowled over by the sheer drama of it all - essentially massive lateral rock formations or escarpments with alpine villages built into the rock. I knew I had to engage with this huge mountainscape and as always began to make lots of drawings over a period of weeks. It is these drawings that led to some 30 large paintings shown recently at Cromwell Place.
You also have a retrospective at the Royal Scottish Academy - how did you select the works?
LM: I am about to open a large survey show of my work on 29th July at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh….this will run throughout the Edinburgh Festival. I use the word “survey” as opposed to “retrospective’ as “retrospective’ tends to have connotations with artists that are no longer with us. It may also suggest a culmination of an artist's output. Although 80 years of age I (hopefully) do not fit either category! The work to be shown in this exhibition kind of selected itself for the following reasons...the scale of the Academy galleries offered me the chance to to exhibit large scale work done over the years and in some cases never publicly exhibited before.The largest of these is 18 ft long. I
definitely wanted to include these. I have kept a large collection of early work from the 1950’s, 60’s and
70’s much of which has not been seen for 40 plus years. As a much travelled painter who has derived
much inspiration from this I have in my own collection many paintings from the countries that I have
worked in over the years, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, India, Greece, Australia etc. Add to this some recent work and combine all these categories in a sequential time -frame and we have the structure of the exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy.
If you could invite 6 guests for dinner who would they be?
LM: Delacroix, Picasso, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Titian, Velasquez.
A further note on the artist's current shows from John Martin Gallery:
This summer the John Martin Gallery presents consecutive exhibitions by Leon Morrocco to coincide with the artist’s 80th birthday and ahead of the artist’s major retrospective at the Royal Scottish Academy (30 July to 28 August) as part of the Edinburgh Festival.
Paintings & Drawings from the Alpes-Maritimes was held at Cromwell Place in South Kensington earlier in June, and presented a magnificent series of recent mountain landscapes from drawings made in the dramatic terrain of the Southern Alpes, inland from the Cote D’Azur. These large-scale paintings show the extraordinary range of the artist’s painting and reveal his restless determination to tackle the challenges, both visual and physical, that this body of work presented.
The second exhibition – Further Shores, Paintings & Drawings since 1967 looks at the various travels that have informed and shaped his outlook as a painter over the last 60 years. The exhibition is a result of an archiving project taking place over the last few years which have brought together some exceptional, unseen paintings that detail the different chapters of Morrocco’s itinerant life, with work that came from drawing expeditions to Cuba, the Mediterranean Coast and across India.
Leon Morrocco: Further Shores
29 June – 29 July 2022
John Martin Gallery, 38 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4JG
Monday to Friday, 10 – 6pm
www.jmlondon.com
About John Martin Gallery
Operating from Mayfair since 1992, the John Martin Gallery represents established international artists, artist estates as well as providing a platform for emerging painters and sculptors.
Finally, a piece on the RSA's exhibition 'Long Road Home':
Coinciding with the artist's 80th birthday, this summer the Royal Scottish Academy will mount a significant homecoming exhibition of Leon Morrocco's work. Encompassing 65 years of practice, the exhibition will include early drawings, previously unseen paintings and a selection of Morrocco’s most recent work. Artworks inspired by the artist’s extensive travels will be on view with paintings of France, Greece, Italy, India, Australia and Mexico.
Leon Morrocco: Long Road Home
30 July – 28 August 2022
RSA Lower Galleries, Royal Scottish Academy
The Mound Edinburgh EH2 2EL
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12-5pm
royalscottishacademy.org
This summer the Royal Scottish Academy will present Leon Morrocco: Long Road Home. Timed to coincide with the artist’s 80th birthday, the exhibition will position Leon Morrocco RSA as one of the most important Scottish painters of his generation.
Although Morrocco was born in Edinburgh, he has not lived in Scotland since 1979. This substantial survey exhibition charts Morrocco’s ‘long road home’ to showing in the Scottish capital this summer. Morrocco is one of the RSA’s longest standing members, having been elected an Associate of the Academy in 1971 at the age of 29.
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